Stories Untold is a rather odd game from Devolver Digital, which seems to sort of be their thing. At first, it appears to be some sort of weird text adventure thing, though in a “game within a game” sort of environment, as you are playing the game on a computer on a desk inside your computer.
The game has a very 1980s vibe to it, which isn’t surprising, because it is set in 1986. It reminds me somewhat of the 1980s Twilight Zone, or similar shows; the first story immediately makes you realize that the game is going to be rather meta, but the game has a number of additional twists in store as you go through its four episodes.
That being said, I use the term “game” somewhat loosely here; this is a strictly linear storytelling experience, and is almost entirely concerned with following directions rather than solving puzzles or interacting with the environment in any sort of meaningful way. Rather, this is more like an interactive made-for-TV movie, or perhaps miniseries – and it is about as long as one, too, clocking in at about 2 hours and 15 minutes to complete.
While this seems to be a horror game at first, it is not the “random monster jumps out and scares you” kind of horror, and while the first episode does a reasonable job of messing with you, the later ones become much less creepy, though all of them have at least somewhat worrisome aesthetics to them.
As the game goes on, increasingly more gameplay mechanics are added, and while the game never becomes complex, and you never really do much more than follow directions, the extremely limited adventure game text interface is actually limited to only a couple portions of the game.
All that being said, this is a very, very simple game. While this is not a walking simulator, this is still a very narrative-focused game with very little actual gameplay, perhaps more like a visual novel than anything else, though its interface is, if anything, most reminiscent of Don’t Touch Anything in terms of being in a very narrowly confined space most of the time, with just one or two screens of actual “content” per episode (though the finale is more complicated).
Sadly, said interface is also clunky at times; the text adventure sections are particularly frustrating at times due to the fact that the interface is not always very smart about what you’re telling it to do, and there were a couple points where I struggled to do what I was trying to do due to needing to find the “magic words” so to speak.
The only other major problem with the game is the fact that, in the end, the story as it ultimately pans out isn’t really nearly as twisty as you would have hoped based on all the other twists in the game. In fact, I was rather disappointed with the ending, as I was hoping that there was going to be one more twist, or rather, that what you were being pushed towards was not what had really happened, but was yet another lie. Alas, it was missing that extra layer, which I think might have added something more to the experience.
All in all, I feel like this was one of those things that tried, but didn't quite get there. If you’re looking for gameplay, this is probably not the place to go looking. And if you aren’t super enamored with dark stories with dark twist endings, this isn’t likely to be up your alley either. If you like a 1980s vibe, though, and a darker sort of vibe, this might be something you’d be interested in. It is certainly a different sort of game.
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